"If it is not broken now, by this cruel separation, nothing I can do will break it. Mamma, forgive me, if I am not as humble and reverent as I should be, but you have laid a great deal on me. All this is, as you say, quite new to me. It is as if you had taken me by the hand, and led me to the room where my brother lay dying and had said to me, 'See, I have mixed the poison, and given it to him; we have talked it over for months together; we are both convinced that it is right and good. Death is better than life. Be content, and give thanks for what we have done.'" "My child, you cannot surely be so blind. How is it that you do not perceive that it is not death, but life, that I have led you in to see? That I have shown you your brother, girded with a new strength, clothed with a new honor; set apart for the service of God forever. Missy, he is not lost to us, dear, while we believe in the Communion of Saints." "Mamma, I don't believe in it! I don't believe in anything. You have overthrown my faith. You have killed me." "Listen to reason, Missy, if not to faith. St. John is happy; happier than I ever knew him, even as a child; he is happy, even in this time of transition and suspense. If he is blessed with this great gift, if he has sought peace and found it, even in what may seem to you this hard and bitter way, let us be thankful and not hinder him. This is not of an hour's growth, and he will not waver. He is slower than we are, Missy, slower and deeper. St. John is steadfast, and he is fully persuaded in his own mind of what he wants to do and what he ought to do. I know no one with so little natural enthusiasm--the fire that burns in him is not of nature. And he has counted the cost. He knows what he gives up, and he knows what he gains. He knows that he is sure of misconception, reprobation, scorn, and I do not think it weighs a straw with him. What would weigh with you, and possibly with me, is literally of no force at all with him. You know he never thought at all what the world might say about him, not from disrespect to the opinion of others, but from deep indifference, from perfect unconsciousness. That is nature, and not grace, but it makes the step less hard. The separation from us, Missy, the giving up his home, that has been a battle indeed; but it has been fought, and, I think, will never have to be gone over, in its bitterness, again." "I don't know how you can have any assurance of that; excuse me for saying so." "Well, I cannot explain it to you. I am afraid I could not make you understand exactly. 'The heart hath its reasons, which the reason cannot comprehend.'" "No doubt. I am not right in asking you to cast these spiritual pearls before me--" "Missy!" "But I may ask for some plain husks of fact. I am capable of understanding them, perhaps. If it isn't bringing things down too much, please, when does my brother go away--where does he go to, when he goes?"